The present invention relates to optical fiber management and, more particularly, to systems for connecting optical fibers.
When providing services using an optical fiber network, it is generally necessary to add and drop subscribers over time. As a result, a variety of methods are provided for interconnecting subscriber locations with a central office connecting facility operated by an optical network provider. To improve the utilization of communication circuits within such a central office facility, interconnection cabinets, such as a centralized splitter cabinet (CSC) and/or centralized splitter cross-connect (CSX), may be provided as part of the outside plant (OSP) infrastructure of the optical fiber network. Doing so may allow some of the burden of establishing and changing connections on the network to be shifted away from the central office and facilitate incremental growth of an installed network as new subscribers are added.
A centralized splitter cabinet (CSC) is typically a passive optical enclosure that provides random termination of optical splitters suitable for use in OSP environment. A CSC may be pedestal or pole mounted in the field. A CSC may provide a flexibility point for termination of distribution cable as well as enclosing a splitter array. This flexibility in interconnections of the downstream fiber network may facilitate optimization of the use of electronic equipment in the central office by, for example, avoiding the need to dedicate circuits in the central office to each subscriber location when many such locations may not be active.
A field service technician may be sent to the CSC to modify the selection of a subscriber location coupled through a splitter to a particular fiber from the central office by connecting and disconnecting various cables found in the CSC. For example, it is known to provide connectorized pigtail cables associated with each subscriber location serviced by a CSC in the CSC. A technician can then select the cable for a designated subscriber location, for example, based on a label attached to the pigtail, and insert the selected cable in a connection point of a splitter.
Some currently available splitter interconnect cabinets utilize industry standard connectorized bulkhead modules to house splitters. These designs generally do not permit access to the rear of the connector without breaking a warranty seal and are designed for the central office environment. The seal may be critical for the manufacturer to ensure that no damage to the splitter occurs post-manufacturing (in the field). This requirement may be in direct opposition to the cleaning requirement, for which access to the front and back of a connection point may be desired.